- Oh, I like that idea. Love it. Let's go high. How's everybody doing tonight? Good, good. My name is
- Rebecca Haynes and I'll be your host tonight. This is only our second edition of the Bloomington Variety Hour.
- Our guests tonight are Hal Taylor, president of Citizens for Effective Justice. Rashid Mahdi, who's
- active in the Islamic community, as well as a landlord here, and has dabbled in politics. Jill Taylor,
- who is Hal Taylor's daughter, does brain research. She's been at Harvard. She's overcome a tremendous amount
- personal difficulty with her own brain. So she has insight into her own research as well. And also,
- we have Dan Kerrigan as our musical guest tonight, a nomadic extraordinaire, I suppose. Right now, we're
- going to start with Hal. Welcome, Hal. How are you doing tonight? I mentioned in your introduction that
- you're president of Citizens for Effective Justice. I wondered if maybe you could just give us a brief
- intro into what Citizens for Effective Justice is all about,
- what you do in the community and for the community? It's a group which began very spontaneously after
- the death of James Warden. And it was concerned with the fact that the newspapers had not picked up
- on this. It took three days for them to get an article in the paper. And then it was only a small one.
- And so several of us got very upset about that.
- got together a group of people who were also upset about it. And that was the beginning of Citizens
- for Effective Justice. From there, then we went on to deal with a number of other issues that are alive
- in the town. And we got into problems surrounding the jail and the whole criminal justice system.
- that the group has grown from that first meeting. We've met every Saturday, I think maybe one exception
- since, and continue to meet on Saturday afternoons at 1.30 at Trinity Church. What are the issues that
- most concern you right now in jails? Well, a primary issue that most people are concerned about is the
- recidivism rate and the fact that our jails are overcrowded.
- The overcrowding makes it difficult to do any educating of the people who are in the jail. And it makes
- it difficult to do anything, actually, with them. So the people go into the jail, and they are thrown
- warehouse for the period of time that they're there. And that doesn't do anybody any good. Right. And
- your concern is that they keep coming back to jail all over again. Our concern is that they keep coming
- back, and so we want
- programs that will help them stay out in the first place. And then once they're in, if they have any
- kind of problems with drugs, we're concerned about that. And if they have other problems with decision
- making and understanding their own decisions as they made them in the past, we're concerned with that
- too. And we're also concerned with the whole educational level that they have.
- Because that is a large element in whether or not they can get jobs when they get out. Right, it contributes
- to the poverty, which probably brings them back to community crimes again in the first place. And then
- we're also concerned about when they get out. And our program, ultimately, will have a halfway house
- that will be run by the people themselves. What specifically are the programs you propose to help with
- that? Are there specific proposals on the table?
- I know you talked about two subgroups of Citizen for Effective Justice that were involved with the jails
- right now. Right. The first of those is what we call the CIT program. It's a crisis intervention team
- project. And the goal of it is to train a group of police officers within the overall set of officers
- so that in the event that anyone calls in,
- something that looks like it might have either a mentally ill person involved or somebody who is otherwise
- not quite adequate, that they will be able to send this team or somebody from this team to deal with
- that person. And the team will have been taught how to deescalate problems instead of the kind of
- way that the police often sail into situations in which their de-escalation is the last thing in their
- minds. Right. They come into a violent mentality already, that these are violent offenders,
- and they get them. Yeah. I'm curious. I don't mean to be rude, but how old are you, Hal? I'm 86. Why
- an 86 driver? I mean, all of this. But what does it entice? I know you've been a reverend, but what
- specifically just what creates that drive?
- I don't know, other than that I'm passionately concerned about the rich, poor issue in our country.
- Because the rich are getting richer, and they're going to continue to get richer. The whole system is
- set up for them to get richer. And the poor are getting poorer. And the system is set up for that to happen.
- And I see this as being a critical issue in our nation. And that's one side of it. The other side of
- it is I care about people who are hurting. So I try to do what I can to help them out. So would you
- say that jail has almost become a mechanism of keeping the poor out of society and from becoming successful
- within society under the normal constraints? Something like that.
- something like that, that jail has become a mental institution for people who have mental illness, and
- one that is very destructive. And it's also become a real problem for people who have any kind of addiction,
- because the issue in addiction is trying to get away from something which is bothersome.
- Like, people have addictions because it's a misgivings for them. That's right. In order to get away
- from something that's bothering you, you get into something that dulls your senses or otherwise holds
- you back. And jail is exactly that. So the jail becomes another addiction. And society, which is talking
- all the time about dealing with people with addictions, is throwing them in the
- jail so that they are sitting there for hour after hour after hour away from the problems of life. In
- other words, they're getting exactly what an addiction. They're offered another addiction in place.
- And not to mention if these people are non-violent offenders, they're put in with violent offenders,
- correct? Yeah, right, right. Which probably- More or less, they make some effort to keep them apart.
- What percentage of people in at least Bloomington or Monroe County would you estimate are in there because
- of addiction and non-violent offenses? I don't know how many of them would be there for non-violent.
- But I would think that it would be, I'm only guessing. I would think that maybe 70%. Wow. By violent
- now, I mean fights that people get into.
- I had an attorney tell me some time ago that he thought that maybe they had six or seven people a year
- who really belonged in jail. Wow. And all that taxpayer money. That's right. And all the rest of them
- really belonged there. Right. And this was an attorney who has been a prosecuting attorney here in town
- in the past.
- We're really short on time right now, but if anyone would like to get involved with this organization,
- could you remind us real fast when you guys meet? We meet at 1.30 at Trinity Church every Saturday afternoon.
- And that's a discussion group. We're divided now into two parts. We have a discussion forum that goes
- every Saturday. And then we have another group that we're incorporating called New Leaf, New Life.
- And that's the group that's going to hopefully collect money to do some of the things that we really
- want to do. OK, so that's open to the public and anyone who sees jail overcrowding. It is open to anybody
- who has an interest in any aspect of the criminal justice system. We're really concerned about that.
- OK. Thank you very much, Hal. See you again at the end of the show on the panel.
- We're going to have a song from Dan Carrigan. I suppose he can introduce it himself or just play without
- informing the title. Fluid on the ground was an indication
- Peace.
- And I've been requesting for that gorilla gig As when new in town I am wanted to do
- me a shot on her video phone, wearing makeup in a woman's gown. She said that they would be watching
- movies at night.
- 25 years now so I guess you're doing fine. The brake fluid puddles in the parking lot. Seething from
- the breach in my brake line. Attending your arrival as I write this song. Wishing that I was
- outside.
- The stars keep on whizzing by. The trucks sail just like the ocean. And I entertain the notion. My master
- cylinder's running dry. And in the a.m. little bee breaks our usher by the key.
- Folks are great and gregarious. I know it's all up to me at the end of him. And I knew something was
- amiss. I was curious. Back in Nashville, I had wondered why.
- With all those stains on the pavement Everywhere I went I was hoping they weren't mine With tears streaming
- down the side windows I get back in and I grab the guitar
- by now. Next guest is going to be Jill Taylor, who is Hal Taylor's daughter. We have a family here tonight.
- Hi, how are you doing tonight? Wonderful, wonderful. Well, we just talked to your dad. Quite a guy.
- Yeah, quite a guy. And we didn't even begin to delve into all of his accomplishments. He's a reverend.
- But your deal is the brain. Yes, my deal is the brain. I got a chance to talk to you before. You talked
- about being left-brained and right-brained, and how that affected society. And I just thought that was
- absolutely one of the most interesting things I've heard all week, if not all month, if not all year.
- So I wondered if you could share that with our audience and our perspective to the audience a little
- bit. Well, when you think about the human brain,
- It is divided into two major hemispheres, a huge right hemisphere, a huge left hemisphere. And they
- complement one another in what they do, but they each have their own individual consciousness. And yet,
- they communicate with one another so that, as human beings, we feel as though we have a brain in our
- head and that we have a thought process and we have an experience. But in actuality, what we really
- have are two different brains, two different consciousnesses inside of our head.
- And most of us recognize that we have an intellectual consciousness, a thinking consciousness. And the
- left hemisphere is all about the past and about the future. So there's a clock that sits in the back,
- the left hemisphere. And so you're on a clock, and oh my gosh, you wake up in the morning, and most
- of us are already behind. And we have a relationship with things some other time other than right now.
- So the left hemisphere consciousness is all about some other experience. It's a memory. The right hemisphere
- consciousness is right here, right now. Right here, right now. This is a perfect moment. And in this
- moment, I'm perfect. I'm whole. I am beautiful. And so are you. So we are these incredible body. The
- whole body is made up of 50 trillion cells. 50 trillion. Now, 50 trillion is a mind-blowing number.
- You would have to take all the people on the planet,
- and there are approximately 6 billion people on the planet, and multiply all those people 8,333 times,
- all the people on the planet, to make up the number of cells making up the typical adult human body.
- So I look at the body and I say, every cell in my body, except for the red blood cells, every cell in
- my body, all 50 trillion, contain the exact genetic profile as that original cell that was
- created by the combination of the egg cell and the sperm cell. So that original cell, the zygote cell,
- had the molecular genius to metamorphosize itself into my body. And it did it by duplicating its DNA,
- repackaging that DNA inside of cells, and multiplying and multiplying and multiplying. So I look at
- myself in my right hemisphere. I say, I am the life force power of 50 trillion molecular geniuses.
- and so i walk around the planet amen it's like a hallelujah you know we are so cool just as living beings
- but in the left hemisphere i am a separate i am a solid i am an individual an ego i am an ego center
- i have a language center that says i i am i am a neuroscientist i live at this address my phone number
- is this is what the things that interest me
- So I'm all about my ego center, the small, separate me in the left hemisphere, and yet the right hemisphere
- has this completely separate consciousness. The beauty of that is at any moment in time, any experience
- you have, generally, you make a choice. Do I approach this situation from my right hemisphere consciousness,
- or do I approach this from my left hemisphere consciousness? And generally, the approach is very, very
- different. So inside, if somebody's approaching something with their left
- they're thinking about themselves, and they're thinking about, I don't know, domination almost, or power,
- wealth, or gain in the future. But instead, the right brain can just be here now in the present moment,
- just kind of what all of that philosophical, all of that Eastern, all that, I mean, pretty much spirituality
- in general talks about. And you had talked about how you can tap into that, just by kind of really thinking
- about the moments that you have, where you're experiencing that emotion of, I am here now.
- I call it stepping to the right. At any moment, the left hemisphere, because it has linearity, it also
- has hierarchy. So when you look at our society, it's a very hierarchical society. Our government has
- a president, then we have Congress, and then we have the people, and we are on this hierarchy. The right
- hemisphere has a continuum, and everyone is equal on that continuum.
- And when you look at us as living beings, we are all equal. We are all the same 50 trillion cells. We
- are all the same force of life. But we do have different opportunities. So in our academic system is
- also in hierarchy. You start at kindergarten. You graduate 12. You go to college. You go to graduate
- school. You go beyond. But there's this hierarchy. So we are trained. We're in a left hemisphere trained
- environment, when in actuality,
- many of us want to and do remain in that consciousness that we are all equal. We are all one. We are
- one human family on this planet. And that's the consciousness of the right hemisphere. So I call it
- stepping to the right. And I think that it's key that people learn what it takes for you as an individual
- to step to the right. And that plays right into what your dad was talking about with the class system
- and with the upper class moving up and the lower class moving down, which is really interesting.
- I don't want to get so interested in the brain stuff that we overlook your accomplishments since we
- were just talking about your dad. You did teach at Harvard, correct? I performed research and taught
- at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. So I specialized in the postmortem investigation of the brain
- as it relates to individuals with schizophrenia. So I'm very interested in the mentally ill.
- I'm currently the president of our new NAMI group here locally. So if anyone has mental illness in your
- family and you're looking for support or educational opportunities or advocacy opportunities, NAMI,
- National Alliance on Mental Illness is an option. And also you do a thing called singing for brains.
- I do. I sing for brains. I do.
- there's a shortage of tissue donated for my type of research. And so I started going around educating
- the public about the beauty and the resiliency of the brain, about the value of brain donation. And
- people recognized, oh my gosh, she wants my brain. And you know, I'm a girl from Indiana, so
- I was traumatizing my audiences, and I thought, well, I have to do something to lighten this up. So
- I wrote the Brain Bang Jingle, and so now I always end my presentations with the Brain Bang Jingle.
- I think we're about to hear the Brain Bank jingle, right? She's going to play a little guitar for us.
- Isn't she great already? But now we'll hear the Brain Bank jingle. So this piece is titled 1-800-Brain
- Bank. Oh, I am a brain banker, yes, begging brains is
- from you. Don't worry, I'm in no hurry. Have you considered the contribution you can make when you are
- heaven bound? Your brain can hang around to help humanity. Find the key to unlock this thing they call
- insanity. Just dial 1-800-FRAINBRAIN for information please. Educate
- donate. It's free.
- I think that Dan's going to do another song real fast for us, and then we'll be talking to Rashid Mighty.
- And here's Dan Carrigan again. Hard one to follow there, huh? Yeah, I guess so.
- No peasant underclass Sitcher who gets his ass lit And he'd rather be here now But he thinks it's already
- been Time is short
- It's flying when he's having fun These flats were made for him
- Some folks he's friendly Others he's not so kind People change with him
- Or to lay a stitch and time puts away time That's not its work if you don't search Time is a convenience
- that keeps Everything from happening at the same time And redundant as that sounds
- He's friendly. Others he is to blame. People change with the end.
- just beginner.
- We just rearrange the games that we continue to play.
- Please welcome Rashid Maidi, who, until we get to talk to Dan, who's just hearing his beautiful music,
- is our last guest. Hi, how are you doing tonight? You're good. Good, good. I'm not quite sure where
- to start with you on this one. I know you've been involved in politics. I know that you're involved
- in the Islamic community. I've gotten a chance to hear you talk about the United States so many times.
- I'm not sure where to begin. But I guess in light of the tragedy
- How do you feel as a member of the Islamic community about some of the violence that was done to yourself
- as well as others in this community? Well, I think you have a different opinion. And of course, I'm
- not going to speak for them. I'm going to speak for myself. But I mean, I have a different opinion because
- what happened there, it happened to every one of us because that's not Middle Eastern mosque. It's American.
- So every church is here, there are American churches, outside churches. And to quick jump to conclusions
- saying it's because of what happened in England, I don't believe that's the case, because people have
- different things in their mind. A week later, there was some graffiti written on the church here,
- of course, from the post office. Could be the same person who just hate faith,
- mentally disturbed or person has something about religion itself it doesn't like religion but people
- jump to conclusions and and I'm really glad to see all the faith they did come together and as all Americans
- stay holding each other and supporting each other instead of praying to Satan and Islam is also it's
- about the same thing what it says in Islam to basically help each other and help everyone
- But unfortunately, you know, Islam is being demonized by certain people who are doing it in the name
- of God, which is really whatever it happened in Middle East or anywhere else that's not been Islam.
- Islam doesn't say that for people who doesn't know that. Do you feel like, in a way, the people demonizing
- Islam are our government because of the fear that's been instilled since 1611? Well, I mean, government
- is just basically started before. For the Russians, the Russians
- They were bad. They were monsters. But now they're OK. Now all they have to do, they have to demonize
- others. So in order to keep the control. So I think that's one of the strategy. But using, I don't know
- what next after the Muslims. Who is going to be next? And that is how it is powered in such a democratic
- country where people have a voice. The only way to basically guide their voice is to put them
- I think it's unfortunate for the Islamic community as well, even if having these stereotypes presented
- to the American people, these people cause this. Anytime you start saying these people, it's... Well,
- what's bothering me is the word label. Whenever a Muslim does something wrong, it's generalized.
- If a Muslim, they don't call him by name, X and X, John Doe did this. Like for us, this is what happened
- in Iraq. The Iraqis are not happy.
- about the British and the Americans, or they don't say the Christians. They specifically say the Americans,
- or specifically they say the British, they don't say the Christians. While Christianity is great religion,
- it said turn the other cheek. How many people turning their cheek? When Gandhi said it was not for British,
- Britain, England, India would have been Christianized. Why?
- The British, they were seen as Christians coming there. And of course, unfortunately, they have given
- a bad thing to Christianity. And so is Islam. Islam is also about peace. And some bad seeds has done
- that. So it's just people who are not educated think Islam is bad. It's not, really. And that's a really
- interesting point, that you don't hear people say, oh, the Christians did it when the United States
- or almost any other country in the West World does something. That's interesting. You don't hear. You
- never hear.
- Christian did. And Christianity is one of the greatest religion of peace. You know, so is Islam. God
- said to me, Islam will ever kill an innocent soul. Let me tell you, a human being, an innocent soul,
- he's like he'll kill the whole humanity. And the prophet of Islam, what he says, said, if you are in
- state of war, I mean, defensive, not offensive, defensive, don't harm children.
- The Han women don't burn trees, don't burn houses. And if the farmer is farming his land, let him be.
- And if a soldier gives up, an enemy gives up, set him free. So it's not just like all those radical
- Muslims that weave in crusading, like jihad, kill everyone. No, no. No, this is just kind of
- brainwashing, they could be used. But those people are against what the religion says. God condemns
- suicide, period. And the word jihad, people may not understand the word jihad. Jihad means struggle.
- Even when you take care of your family, it's jihad. Even when he's doing with the justice, it's jihad.
- Jihad is not really pick up a gun and go shoot, no. What really the jihad on case 40 to defend your family,
- If there's three things that you could die for, defending your family, if somebody come and kill your
- family, that's a part of the jihad that you basically get to heaven, when they say defending your family,
- defending your base, your town, your country, or your religion, if some people can't address you. It's
- only defensive, not defensive. But it's never aggressive. No, never aggressive. It's only offensive.
- It says, if you are attacked, you've
- Defend yourself equally. If you get powerful, don't use extreme force. That's what I said. Don't use
- extreme force. And they said, forgiveness is better than revenge. But, of course, all of this goodness,
- the bad, it's not being shown or basically used by the Muslims who does the bad things. Basically, they
- are not looking to their book. And God said also in the Quran, if you close your heart, your eyes won't see.
- And it's happened with the Christian. The Bible verse said they don't see it because they close their
- heart. Happened in anything. Right, so it's with all religion. With all religion. And you guys are acting
- violently. Are gods better than your god? All the sponsors in the name of god. There is only one god.
- Believe me, I tell you that there is only one god. There is no many gods. In Islam, they call it Allah,
- but it's the same god. And it's god for everyone. Like the French said, chaquem posway yipotus.
- means everyone for himself and God is for everyone. And that's how they should look at it. God is for
- everyone. But there is groups of people who say God only for themselves. They're not the other ones,
- which is not. And there is one good thing in Islam God said. He will judge you by your heart, not by
- your action. By your heart. He looks in your heart and judges you by it, not by your actions. Because
- actions we all know, really,
- We misjudged people. Look how the injustice people have been gone to death for. Because people didn't
- look to the heart of the person, really, if the person is innocent, if he did it, if he repented, if
- he repented. Nobody knows that. But anyway, if all religions, if all religions, they follow the religion
- and live policy out of it, exactly the way it is, we will have peace. I don't believe there is any religion who will
- encourage violence or bloodshed or no. I want to, before we run out of time, touch on real fast. You
- were involved in politics in Bloomington about six years ago. I think you were running for mayor. I
- just wondered, what would you like to see? What issues concern you most in the Bloomington community
- right now? I came here a long, long time ago, about three years ago. The town was beautiful. Everything
- was so peaceful. It was just green as everywhere. You can walk to everywhere. But anyway.
- 1999, I have noticed the changes. And I foresaw the future. And I had basically decided to run for mayor's
- office to save Bloomington. And my slogan was save our town. Save our town, because I know what's going
- to happen. And whatever I said, if you can go back to the tape, you will see exactly what I predicted
- was happening. And I didn't like to see Bloomington going from a town to a city.
- while GE was closing, AXE was closing, and it was only a university. And so they created a big city,
- a hollow city, I call it, with not many people. And Bloomington wasn't meant to be that big city. It's
- just a student town. And the biggest problem right now, we're going to have a lot of empty homes.
- Because of all the new apartment complexes that they're calling? Oh, yeah. It's just ridiculous. I mean,
- I don't know why. I mean, that's really like just go and devastate land, tear up the trees, and just
- go ahead and just build big boxes. For what? I mean, I don't understand. There is enough houses for
- everyone. But having these wild constructions is going to hurt us in the future. It's turning Bloomington
- where it's not. Right. And the rent at those apartment complexes is incredible.
- But the problem is, the rent is expensive or not, people will get tired of those big buildings. Now,
- if those buildings people are not going to go live in them, what's going to happen? Ghost buildings?
- What's going to be? Because after 10 years, people will get tired of those. People still have like old
- homes and things like that. I mean, there is so many of them. And what's bothering me is the old buildings,
- I found the buildings around Allen Street or somewhere around.
- I don't know what's going to happen to those. And what's happening is hurting the people of Bloomington,
- who have basically invested for their retirements, older people. But it's going to hurt them. Do you
- have a plan for things to stay the same? Yeah. I think that we're out of time right now, because we
- still want to get to talk to this gentleman over here. But I'll see you again very briefly. Thank you
- very much.
- Well, we already have Dean Kerrigan on stage with us, so I'll just scoot this way a little bit, I guess.
- How are you doing tonight, Dean? I feel good. I feel nice and cool in this air-conditioned environment.
- Good, good, good. And thanks for inviting me, too. Oh, no, it's lovely to have you on the show. I got
- to share for a second. I remember the first time I heard this gentleman playing guitar.
- I was having a horrible day. I'm walking up Kirkwood. And all of a sudden, I see this guy, and I'm sitting
- there with his guitar and the band. And there's almost like this bubble around him of positive energy.
- So I had to throw that compliment out there for everyone. I initiated that as a nomadic extraordinaire.
- You go around the country in your van playing music, just sort of sharing with everybody.
- What's your favorite memory from doing that so far? Do you have a favorite or what inspired this? I'm
- not sure where to begin. Well, it's very saturated with all sorts of positive memories. So it's kind
- of like anybody. I have ups and downs.
- instead of being a big rock star or something, and having independence gives you freedom, I guess. You
- talked about before that you did kind of have an opportunity to sort of start to become a semi-rock
- star sort of thing as a drummer before you played guitar, and then you gave that up. Just wondered,
- based on the whole dialogue we were having with Jill about the left brain and the right brain, what
- exactly inspired you to do that?
- there are a lot of things that you perceive to be opportunities, especially if you're a career-oriented
- person or if you're moving through a hierarchy or progressing. But a lot of times, if you listen to
- your heart, you might have some sort of issue with things that you have to do, compromises you make
- with people that you have to deal with. And if you feel uncomfortable,
- not discount it and not devalue it, because that's probably when you're going to wind up on all sorts
- of pharmaceutical drugs and really living a lie or becoming a person that you aren't. We're human beings,
- not human doings. So maybe that's a lot of words to answer a simple question. I found myself when I
- was signed to just really seeing a side of the music business
- distasteful to me. And that doesn't mean that applies to every person who's successful in a major legal
- way or a big rock star. I mean, a lot of people find their peace or their comfort zone in that.
- And that's OK. I mean, everyone finds their level. But sometimes you can see something like, let's say,
- in politics, for example. I think there's an expression like politics and sausage making. You don't
- want to see what the behind the scenes business is.
- there's the right reasons to do things and the wrong reasons to do things. And I think that opting to
- maybe back away from that little spike of success that I had as a drum set player was a really positive
- move for me to do. And as an artist, pursuing songwriting
- only as a musician that it begins to focus and focus and say, okay, I'm going to go to music school.
- I'm going to be the best drummer in the world kind of thing. And there's nothing wrong with being the
- best person that you can be. But if you have a tendency to over focus and a tendency to become very
- competitive, which is the kind of world that we live in,
- many steps back and essentially what I do as a troubadour is just figuring out a way to redefine and
- reinvent myself in a way that's really low impact and really easy to do because it's, I mean, taking
- it right down to an acoustic guitar and the voice probably is basically
- I think it does. So I'm curious. This show is the Bloomingtown Variety Hour, and here you have landed
- in Bloomington after playing probably pretty much everywhere. What do you think of Bloomington? Favorite
- moments in Bloomington? Favorite place to eat? What do you think of Bloomington as a town?
- I think Bloomington is definitely an unsuspecting
- one of the last bastions of freedom. Because you can go down the street, and you can see in people's
- windows a hate-free zone. And people wave to you hello on the street and say hi. And you mean it. And
- they make eye contact. And these are little aspects of community that you don't even find in small towns
- anymore, because a lot of small towns are rife with a lot of suspicion or unworked
- reasons that people leave small towns. There's just a profound sense of community here, which I really
- like. And after performing in over 100 cities and playing or visiting probably at least 100 more, I'd
- like to think that I have an experienced eye for that kind of thing. And I can call it and say, yeah,
- this is a good place. And of course, I might walk out and get shot right now or something.
- is that life has a funny way to come back. But it's a really, it's in a place and there's a reason why
- I've been here more than just like the prerequisite, you know, three day maximum or whatever that I
- get to, you know, to experience a place and be a visitor and not ask judgment and just say, oh yeah,
- nice place. Well, and you know, I'd like this about it for, you know, to leave that there and continue
- on. But there's,
- Yeah, I think that we're short on time now, but I had to get an outside perspective there for a second,
- because I feel like having been in Bloomington even just for a couple years, I've stopped appreciating
- it as much as I could. So I thought that was a lovely contribution you made there. So we're about to
- get into a roundtable discussion here, and we're just going to talk about a few local things, I think
- maybe one or two national things, depending on time. Robin Vermillion, who's with Citizens for Effective
- justice. We'll also be joining us on stage. She just recently finished a degree in criminal justice.
- We're back again with all of our esteemed guests plus one extra Robin. As I mentioned before, I thought
- I'd give her another intro.
- Originally we're going to start out talking about I-69 and we will get to that in a minute, but I'm
- noticing that our panel here seems stacked with a couple people from Citizens for Effective Justice
- and also Jill who knows a lot about brain disorders and psychological problems that might contribute
- to the problems that would be brought up within Citizens for Effective Justice.
- So I think it would be great if we could sort of begin this discussion just asking the question, why
- do we allow so many people to be in jail that need help? What can we do as a community to change that?
- How can we go about this? Do laws need to be changed as well? Should some things not be illegal that
- are illegal? Should there not be jail time carried with it? Just along those lines. Can I take the big question?
- I'll keep this off because it reminds me of a conversation that I was having with a local business owner,
- a retailer on the street, Kirkwood. He was talking about people that had their windows broken and also
- talking about robbery. So B&E, breaking and entering, and also robbery at gunpoint. And I was really
- shocked because it just seems like such a sense of community around here and everything. Of course,
- that kind of stuff can't happen
- there is community. And then we started talking about it. And the first thing that I thought of was
- that when the idea of community breaks down, when people don't know each other, that it's a lot easier
- to look away or not pay attention to what's going on. So for example, if I don't know you personally,
- and it's really less my problem. But if you're a relative of mine or a close friend
- or whatever, all of a sudden I'm more motivated to be involved in your problem, it becomes my problem.
- And I think that the more a community works together as a group, and we get involved in each other's
- affairs, and now I've heard your opinions and your side of stuff, and yours, and I haven't met the people
- in the audience yet, but before this program or after this program,
- It's anybody can come and talk to me while I'm playing on the street, or we can run into each other
- in the library, outside the doors, or whatever. And I think that's what builds a community, because
- people perceive each other as being people. And that if you just see people as strangers, and you don't
- make eye contact, and you don't say hi to them, and you don't go and patronize their business, or you
- go to Walmart, or whatever, I mean, at that point, you're basically
- dehumanizing things, and I think that's when problems start to take seed and grow up into larger issues.
- And then eventually you have things like incarceration problems, or you're wondering what to do with
- people that are in jail. Why are they in jail in the first place? What causes someone to go and break
- a window? There's random violence for all reasons, and then there's targeted
- of terrorism, which was what happened at the mosque. I read that on the front page of the newspaper.
- And I was like, yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was terrorism right here, probably from Americans
- on Americans. And that kind of attitude is the result of the dehumanization of our society that erodes
- the fabric of community. I have a comment on that. Sorry to interrupt.
- May I go next? I want to say something. OK, first half, and then Robin. Yeah, you know, dealing with
- people who are really homeless, and not just homeless in the sense that at the present time they don't
- have an address, but people who are
- are homeless because they're isolated first of all from their parents and then from teachers and then
- from citizens and then from society by being put in jail. I mean, all of these people are just hostile
- as hell. And that kind of hostility, I think, is more important when it comes to the breakdown of our society
- in the way we've been talking about than anything else. I think it's a matter of people relating to
- people in ways that make them angry and hostile and revengeful and anxious to somehow take it out on
- somebody. Yeah, this is going to sound like one of those
- was on here we go cool cool cool okay I am so sorry um to make a long story short I was minding my own
- business downtown and sitting on a park bench with a friend of mine of you know five years I can't say
- any names or any sort of thing because I won't but
- I basically made the comment, oh, you know, there's a couple girls drunk here last night. Two girls
- approached me. I took karate for six years. I'm nonviolent. I did it for discipline. They basically
- came up to me in a threatening way and said, want to go out in the back alley? I didn't know who the
- heck they were. I knew that one of them was the person that apparently was drunk the other night or
- whatever. You know, my voice carries.
- I knew that something was going to go down. I asked my friend. I kind of tapped him on the elbow and
- said, can you please walk me in my car? This was August 2002. OK, I'm going to. I suffered a broken
- nose in two places. Surgery. Right now I'm on science medicine.
- Praise God I got my criminal justice degree. It was a wake-up call. It really was. And people don't
- understand that when a crime happens, it affects the rest of your life. When you work at a place, I
- worked at Walmart, okay? And if I had to work till 10 o'clock at night or whatever, somebody had to
- walk me to my car.
- I was paranoid to the point I would not drive down Kirkwood, Indiana, any of these streets for the next
- four blocks. I can't get a job working with victims in our city despite the fact that I'm healed from
- it. But in this organization, I'm able to
- learn and be a part of some big picture with a lot of little bubbles and all these, I call the little
- bubbles the different organizations that we work with. I really like what Hal said because in this town,
- there's people that will do stuff for attention.
- And to make a long story short, they'll do it for a political statement. My husband and a bunch of guys
- were parked at the armory with a work there. 15 vehicles got vandalized. One guy in particular had just
- restored his truck, the interior. And they did this to make a statement, but all these vehicles were
- barely damaged. In this town, I've lived here all my life. I've seen the changes. I've seen my dad lost
- his job from
- hearing about your experience and hearing about these violent crimes that have occurred to you, I wonder
- actually how many people in jail are part of those violent crimes like we talked about before and how
- we as a community can stop that from happening or what the cause would be more perhaps. Could I address
- it just from a mental illness perspective?
- Back in the 60s, there was this big de institutionalization movement where all of the major psychiatric
- hospitals were going to be shut down.
- The theory was that mental illness existed because there were places for people who were mentally ill,
- which doesn't make much sense to some of us, but that was the idea. So if we got rid of the psychiatric
- hospitals, then we would get rid of mental illness. Well, of course, what that did was it pushed individuals
- who had major psychiatric problems
- out into the streets and the the agreement was that we were going to close the institutions, but we
- will have community based programming to receive these people to help these people and to help these
- people get back into some kind of treatment program and quality of care and quality of life.
- And that didn't happen. So the deinstitutionalization happened, but the community care programming didn't
- happen. So as a result, the people who are in the psychiatric hospitals become our homeless population.
- And many of them, because they have minds that are not functioning in a normal way, they get themselves
- into trouble because they're hungry and they're scared. So when you approach any wild animal,
- and you corner a wild animal, what does that wild animal do? It's going to attack you. So many of these
- individuals end up in our jail system. It's estimated across the U.S. 25 to 33% of the people in the
- jail systems have a serious psychiatric illness. They don't belong in a jail system. They belong in
- a treatment program. So what I love about the Citizens for Effective Justice is
- as they look at the jail population and say, how can we help these individuals learn about themselves,
- learn from their mistakes based on the decisions that they have made that got them into trouble? How
- am I doing, Dad? This is really his story, but yeah, listen to the man. And how can we then take these
- individuals and create problems
- in our community so that when they get out of jail, they have had some training in jail, but there is
- a place for them. There is no place in our society, in our community, for individuals stepping out of
- the jail system in order to get quality treatment, in order to get
- effective tools and mechanisms of living life. So what I love about this program is that this is a healthy
- group of people who are willing to come together on Saturdays and talk about these issues and what can
- we do as a community to, you know, one of the biggest political issues that you hear about all the time
- is the overcrowding of our jail.
- So instead of building a bigger, better, stronger jail, hold more people, why aren't we really looking
- at who is in the jail and what can we do to help these people get back into the community? So that's
- kind of more of a historical perspective.
- Jail is jail. And I could agree about certain people who should go to jail should be locked up. There
- is no question about it. But certain don't deserve to be in jail. They shouldn't be in jail. But anyway,
- the biggest thing is to find a way how to deter the one which is taking people to jail is to deter them,
- to punish them. But why not deter them before they get to that point to go to jail?
- And I think, like, when I was running for mayor's office, one, my platform was about the youth. There
- is no youth program. And I was strongly pushing for, like, then they were gonna close the ice rink,
- which was ridiculous. It's one great thing that keeps the kids busy and away from trouble. And also,
- they were after skateboarders.
- And he said, okay, if you are against skateboarders, so why don't you build a park for them? You don't
- want them to be on the street? Build a park for them. You don't have to agree with the skateboarders.
- This is a great country. We have diversity in this. Everyone, when you want to pursue, just encourage
- them. And having a park for them, which is, I like my tax money, goes to that program to help the youth,
- but those youth who could join those parks,
- And they said, well, there is one thing we could do. We make a deal. Instead of investing on having
- more cops, we can invest on somebody who could be a psychiatrist, have an office there. Well, those
- kids who will join the park, their membership, if they're in trouble, is to check with psychiatrists.
- And then they're passed to the park. And I thought that would have been a great idea, instead of putting
- too much money in the police force, we can put more money
- to deter. And I think having such a thing will help the kids being busy and if they have a problem they
- have someone to talk to before they basically do something. Now when the kids don't have anything to
- do what they will think? Being mischievous. Either being mischievous or to get back at the society because
- those are successful I have nothing to do.
- And he is a rich kid. He has a right for this. So they do something wrong. Like there is a saying back
- home. They say the shepherds, when he has nothing to do, when he's shepherding his sheep, he either
- break his cane or cut his clothes, rip his clothes, because he has nothing to do. And if these kids
- here have nothing to do, what are they going to do? They will get detention, like she said.
- Or they basically go ahead and get something that they dislike and do anything. Graffiti, a lot of them
- getting into graffiti, which is really wrong in this business of graffiti. They disagree with it.
- But I mean, the way I think we should save those kids from going back to jail is to give them something
- to do, is to pay attention to them to see what their problem before they go
- do something else. And that will start from the youth, I think. And the parents are not really responsible,
- because first of all, the problem also goes back to the core of it, is the government doesn't let us
- guide our kids, doesn't let us correct our kids. So then later, when our kids do wrong, then they point
- a finger on us saying, you! They hide themselves for not letting us, which is, my father gave me a really
- great analogy
- how I raise a child. He said, son, a child is like that baby tree. It's so flexible and tender. He said,
- if you let that tree grow crooked, and you don't straighten it from day one, once it grows crooked and
- dries out, you straighten it and you break it. You lose that tree. And that is really what is happening.
- Our children, they overpower the parents. And they do what they want to do. And then the parents, they
- have no more control.
- And then the later they go ahead and get in trouble and then they blame their parents for failing on
- them. There is so many things that links really to get the children away from the jail. Neglected children
- will go to jail if they have no law, nothing to do. And also the point he brought up as the city is
- growing and people are not mingling together anymore.
- They basically, they become too individual, even to help, or not my business, this and that. If this
- house is that the porch is being closed, that people don't visit each other, neighbors don't visit each
- other. So everybody's becoming individual, even our homes inside. Our kids sit down in the cars, don't
- eat with us. So the whole thing is deteriorating. Do you think that a lot?
- material-based culture and a consumer-based culture, which takes the place of the use and overuse expression
- of family values. I mean, not even family values, but values in general. There is a huge spiritual void
- created as our contemporary system is moving towards more and more consumer goods.
- and that people are happy when they want something and they buy it and then they feel an emptiness because
- now they have something and it didn't make them happy after they acquired it and maybe it broke or maybe
- they just want the next thing. This impacts the planet so heavily in terms of our production and consumption
- is basically causing the destruction of the planet and driving around
- I assume instead of making do with what they have or raising their kids as tender young samplings and
- spending time with them, quality time, my dad never took me to the park to throw the ball with me.
- I really, in terms of fatherhood, I would have to reinvent myself for that because I didn't have any
- models for that. And he didn't have any models. And how many generations do you have to go back to figure
- out what happened to the new
- to figure out where it fell apart, probably to the Industrial Revolution, actually. But how do we fix
- that now? People have to stop looking at each other as being different. And I have to look at you and
- say that I am you. And I'm you, and I'm you, and I'm you, and I'm you, and I'm all of you people. And
- we all have something in common. And that if you look at people, they look different.
- If you talk to them, they're all real people. All you have to do is take the time to talk to them. And
- that's something I've learned as a busker, a street performer, is that people come up to me and they
- talk to me. They talk to me about the dog. And sometimes they don't even listen to the music. And they
- just talk to me. And everyone has a soul. Everyone has a little light that shines out of them. And it's
- amazing. And when everybody is busy rushing around, dealing with material things and buying stuff and
- everything, and they're
- you know, the whole scarcity of product paradigm, you know? This is like the wealthiest nation in the
- world. And people are acting as if there's not enough. There's too much. There are distribution problems,
- you know? And we could feed the world and everything. But the powers that be that want to divide people
- and cause fear to control them, as you said, and also, as you said, Alan, is like, you know, they're
- not interested in, you know, putting in a skating rink or a skate park or having
- replacing one police officer with, let's say, a psychologist or a social worker or something like that,
- I honestly don't believe that the real powers that are in control right now do not have the best interests
- of the people at heart. They are self-serving, and that they have their private interests at heart,
- and their actions demonstrate that they are willing to stop at nothing and be completely, you know,
- in a sense that they're trying to demonize other people to take the focus of attention away from themselves,
- because they are actually self-evident in terms of being demons. And that's something that when people
- have to empower themselves in this country, while there is still a window of opportunity to do that,
- because as they gain more control, the window fast closes, and something needs to be done. Yeah, so
- what do we do?
- I think the problem is even worse than that. The problem is in me and the problem is in you. I don't
- really care a lot of the time. I really don't care a lot of the time. There are times when I do care
- and there are
- There are things which make me care. There are things that help me care. When a day starts, I often
- am very angry. I'm angry because this damn body hurts. And it takes a while to get the joints to work.
- And I think we're all like that to a large degree. We really don't care. Now, I attend a lot of different churches.
- I have yet to find, well, I take it back now, one church is doing it, but I have yet to, until recently,
- I had yet to find a church which prayed on Sunday morning for the men and women and children in Iraq
- that we have murdered. We don't even bother to pray for those people. We don't give a damn
- that they have been murdered. And not just murdered, I mean, how many of them, thousands upon thousands
- of them, have been destroyed for life? And how conscious are we as human beings in this country of what
- we have done over there? We simply are not conscious of it. The media takes care of that. The media doesn't.
- I don't think it's the media's fault, really. I think you're absolutely right. The media is not giving
- us a real picture. On the other hand, I think even if it did, we would not be much different from what
- we are. I think we don't want to know. That the point is what happened. People don't want to know. Because
- the media can feed you anything. It's up to you. If you are smart enough to take it,
- Or if you really want to play stupid enough, no. Because the obvious is obvious, you know, what is happening
- now. We spent billions, I mean, dollars over there for what? While people here are needed for that.
- And there's people who are dying. And how could we accept that? That is the issue, you know,
- where to start. I mean, we are really all responsible. We are all responsible. And unfortunately,
- our leaders, we elected ourselves.
- they're not serving the people who are like them.
- Revolution only comes when people are uncomfortable. And if people are comfortable, they're not going
- to revolt. If there's nothing in them, they're comfortable. But if you are uncomfortable, you might
- revolt. But if you change your life, I mean, there could be incremental change that might offset some
- sort of a peak in a valley thing where, you know, you've got harsh conditions here and then cozy conditions
- here. I mean, we're living like at the end of a golden age here. There's information as well.
- pleasant air conditioning. We talk to each other. We're not here for our lives going inside. Hopefully.
- that that country doesn't get the ability and interaction with this country, with these people here.
- Vets were over there making sure that these people that are wrong, that have true fear of evil, considering
- the word fear in Hebrew means admiration. They have admiration for the evil that they don't believe
- in because of their own misunderstanding of their own religion, of how they view things.
- to sit there and speak. Our soldiers are not over there murdering children. They're not over there murdering
- people. War is and costs casualties and lives, innocent lives. Without that war place over there right
- now, sir, you would not have the ability to sit there and speak like you do. And everybody's opinion
- up there. So don't, and I just don't agree.
- We are not criticizing the people who are fighting the war over there. This is not the issue. The issue
- is something very different. The issue is that we as human beings here don't care what the results are
- of what we're doing over there. That's the issue. You care, you care enough for what?
- You care enough to support the war. I care enough to not support the war. You and I are on two different
- sides of this. I had a daughter that died because of the service of my country because I was given a
- shot that in turn caused me to have a chemical problem within my brain that on a DNA level when my daughter
- was born because of what I wanted to serve the country to make a stable world, I had a daughter die
- So yes, I do care. And yes, I still do support our troops over there trying to make a stable goal, even
- though my daughter paid the ultimate price. I don't think this is going to be a very profitable discussion
- for us. I think we've come to the end of this. We have a difference. I wanted to. I had a comment like
- four people or five people go on the mental health. You don't mind? I'm sorry I had to break up this
- discussion.
- My hobby, if you will, is volunteer work and that sort of thing with special needs individuals, whatever
- you want to call them. I've worked at Stone Belt. Basically, with my criminal justice background and
- what I've learned is
- like the tree statement, what that reminded me of is what's going on in our society is that what they're
- doing, he said mentioning blaming the parents. Sometimes the parents are put in jail for crimes their
- kids have done. I knew an incident of a young man that was caught smoking regular cigarettes.
- in my old high school, parents who had adopted him, and they had two other kids, and you can understand
- the finances, had to pay a $500 fee. The other thing is, we were mentioning the change of the family
- structure, which is very important, because in, say, my grandparents' time, my grandparents had been
- married 58 years,
- People had more stable marriages. The families ate at dinner together, and they had more core values.
- And what's going on today is I want it now. I want my burger this way. I want my mag this way. Yes,
- and that's another thing. When I was growing up, I can't say I had the perfect family. The only time we
- basically got along was we set the dinner table, we talked about our day. Okay, that's what we did.
- And when you're thinking about raising kids in today's computer generated society, these values, we
- need to look at our grandparents as far as their values because, and the other thing is with the learning styles
- The unique learning styles, a lot of times they're treated as being more severe off than they are and
- then it puts them as a catalyst and it sinks down as far as they're the type to be more prone to crime,
- they want to fit in, they want to follow the crowd and in a lot of
- The learning styles, there's so many people with unique learning styles that a lot of them aren't detected.
- I think I would like to say something positive. I've said a whole bunch of negative things, but I would
- like to say something positive. And that is that each of us have an opportunity
- not every day, but every hour, to look at somebody and try to see what their possibilities are and to
- help them do something that will help them in the direction of developing those possibilities. That
- is a possibility for us all the time. And that's the kind of thing that I think we all ought to really
- devote ourselves to doing. And I give you to the floor.
- Thank you very much for coming outside, everybody. Thank you to all of the guests on our panel. You're
- all wonderful to talk to. Oh, oh, it's Max Hartstein's birthday, 76. If no one minds, we're going to
- sing him happy birthday to anyone else that wants to join in. We can't get on the mic. But other than
- that, the show is over. And thank you, everybody, for coming out. And thanks for sitting up here. One,
- two, three.
- Next time you're doing the round table. You did great. No I told you I'm not in the frame.
- is drugs. These are your liberties. And this is the government. Any questions?
- Oh, I like that idea. All we try to do from moment to moment is fulfill our desires. Love it. Which
- makes us higher. Let's go higher.